With a fragile U.S. economy hanging in the balance and soaring gas prices looming as a threat to any hopes of a recovery, President Obama has announced plans to implement a $240 billion alchemy initiative program to help stimulate the economy.

The plan will include tax breaks to companies who will abandon primitive plans for off-shore oil drilling, for the pursuit of more modern alchemy experiments and production. The President hopes that the new plan will be as wildly successful as the Green Jobs initiative he implemented when he first came into office.

“It’s clear why such an effort is so important,” he said. “Building a robust alchemy sector is how we will create jobs of the future, jobs that will, quite literally, pay for themselves.”

“We boast one critical, renewable resource the rest of the world cannot match,” he continued. “American ingenuity.”

When asked whether or not that ‘American ingenuity’ would actually keep people from being coaxed into supporting such a plan, Obama responded, “I convinced them to vote for me. Anything is possible.”

Pressed for further details about the program, the President said, “Let me be clear. This isn’t rocket science. We leave that to the professionals at our Muslim Outreach Program, er, NASA. What we’re basically doing here is turning other metals into gold. How can that possibly fail?”

He added, “With so much success in the solar energy field, this seems like a logical next step for our Energy Department.”

Steven Chu, when pressed for comment, gave the new alchemy initiative high marks.